Pasqal, Nvidia building Quantum Computing Center of Excellence
When Nvidia last month claimed the largest ever simulation of a quantum algorithm and announced partnerships with IBM and Google, it also mentioned in passing that it was working with French start-up Pasqal. Now we know a few more details of that collaboration.
Pasqal, which already had been a member of the Nvidia Inception program designed to help start-ups gain access to Nvidia technology, announced in recent days that it is building a Quantum Computing Center of Excellence featuring a cluster of 10 Nvidia DGX A100 systems with Nvidia InfiniBand supercomputer networking solution forging the connectivity.
This cluster will allow Pasqal to expand availability of more quantum computing tools and applications to more customers, while also boosting technical capabilities for Pasqal’s emulation system, which is based on its Pulser open-source library. Pulser will be available via the cloud in early 2022, Pasqal said.
To optimize its own ongoing software development and accelerate quantum circuit simulations, Pasqal also is using Nvidia’s cuQuantum software development kit, which the semiconductor giant unveiled earlier this year and with which Google and IBM, among others, are integrating with their own quantum software tools.
“We are truly excited about this collaboration with Nvidia,” said Loïc Henriet, CTO of Pasqal, in a statement. “Our Quantum Computing Center of Excellence will enrich our emulation capabilities and is also part of our commitment to offer end users the best possible tools across the entire value chain.”
Christophe Legrand, head of France Enterprise Computing at Nvidia, added, “Quantum computing is helping researchers simulate complex phenomena for scientific discovery and address problems including optimization, drug discovery and machine learning. Pasqal’s Quantum Computing Center of Excellence, featuring Nvidia DGX systems, will enable the simulation of tens of atomic qubits in 2D and 3D arrays to develop tools that will foster the development of industrial applications and can help advance scientific discovery.”
